How the index changed reading, for better and worse

Dennis Duncan’s charming new book, “Index, A History of the”, shows that though today they suggest fusty libraries, indexes were once a novelty

Try this one: “gluttony/God/grief/heaven/hell/humanity/Seneca/sex/sin”. It’s a heady combination: ambrosial and intellectual; sensual with a bitter aftertaste. It is from St Augustine’s “Confessions”. Or try a slug of this: “shame/shameless/shamrock/shit/shite/shithouse”. That earthy flavour is from James Joyce. How about “pie/poverty/power/prison/pudding / pugilist”? Full-bodied, with a hint of festive spice: Dickens, naturally.

As Dennis Duncan’s charming book shows, though today they suggest fusty libraries, indexes were once a novelty. A book seems such a simple structure that it feels less invented than self-evident, the innovations behind it hard to see. Yet every chapter in its progress was slow, bound on either side by centuries of sluggishness. Turnable pages didn’t really arrive until the first century. The separating of words with spaces didn’t get going until the seventh—verylateforsomethingsouseful.

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